Enhanced method for multiscale wind simulations over complex terrain for wind resource assessment

Abstract

Due to the natural variability of the wind, it is necessary to conduct thorough wind resource assessments to determine how much energy can be extracted at a given site. Lately, important advancements have been achieved in numerical methods of multiscale models used for high resolution wind simulations over steep topography. As a contribution to this effort, an enhanced numerical method was devised in the mesoscale compressible community (MC2) model of the Meteorological Service of Canada, adapting a new semi-implicit scheme with its imbedded large-eddy simulation (LES) capability for mountainous terrain. This implementation has been verified by simulating the neutrally stratified atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) over flat terrain and a Gaussian ridge. These preliminary results indicate that the enhanced MC2-LES model reproduces efficiently the results reported by other researchers who use similar models with more sophisticated sub-grid scale turbulence schemes. The proposed multiscale method also provides a new wind initialization scheme and additional utilities to improve numerical accuracy and stability. The resulting model can be used to assess the wind resource at meso- and micro-scales, reducing significantly the wind speed overestimation in mountainous areas.